


Best Friends

by Bether



Category: E.R.
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Drabble, Episode Tag, Extended Scene, F/M, Internal Monologue, Not Beta Read, One Shot, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Past Tense, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-23
Updated: 2006-07-23
Packaged: 2017-10-11 18:29:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bether/pseuds/Bether
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neela's thoughts as she rides away from Ray after she finally moves out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Friends

**Author's Note:**

> Set directly after the final scene in 12.18 "Strange Bedfellows" in which Neela moves out of the apartment she shares with Ray.
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** Characters mentioned are used without permission and are trademarks of NBC/whoever else owns the rights to ER. I do not own them and am simply borrowing for my purposes. Please don't sue.

Best friends.

What does that even _mean_ , anyway? And who asked him, right? Friends. Pah, who needed them? She'd been… fine before, really. Just fine. Happy(ish), even. Or close enough. And that'd been all right by her, thank you.

Then he just had to come and screw it all to hell, didn't he? It was Ray at his best. It'd been so easy, playing house under the guise of roommates. So easy that he hadn't even noticed until she was already in too deep.

And that was it, wasn't it? They'd just been playing. Fooling themselves—each other. In the world of their little apartment, it all seemed so straightforward. Like it made sense. They were friends. They were roommates. Simple as that.

Only it wasn't really. It wasn't simple at all. Because it wasn't _real_ —any of it. She was _married_ , damn it, and he… he _wasn't_ Michael. He was never going to be Michael. He was Ray. Her _co-worker_ Ray. Her _friend_ Ray. Her _roommate_ Ray. Just Ray. Her Ray.

Except he couldn't be _her_ Ray. He couldn't be hers when she already belonged to someone else. It wasn't fair, not to either of them or Michael. _Especially_ not to Michael, off fighting halfway around the world.

It'd been real, see, and _that_ was the problem. There'd been a moment where he was more than _just_ Ray. More than just her friend or roommate. That was why she had to leave. Why it had to end. Tonight. For her, for him, for _Michael_.

Best _friends_. If only. If it had only been that. Then maybe she could've stayed. Maybe it would've been okay. But they weren't best friends, not really. They were something else entirely. Something that they _couldn't_ be.

Because she had Michael and he had his own issues and they were far too complicated without really even being anything tangible at all. Things weren't meant to be so difficult. It was time to recognize the truth—it simply wasn't meant to be.

(And as she left him behind, standing on the sidewalk holding the shirt she'd refused from him, she could almost believe that, too.)


End file.
